posted 02-11- 07:20 PM
Night Sky tutorial1) After you saved your mission go to the folder where it's saved so you see
your new mission file.
2) Then open up the Notepad with the Start menu. Notepad comes standard with
windows, and in the Start menu it stands in a folder together with Paint,
Calculator and Write. Notepad is also the normal viewer for txt files.
3) After opening the Notepad you should resize the Notepad window so you can
see and the Notepad and the new mission.
4) Now, you should drag your mission to the Notepad window with your mouse.
Now you see the mission in the Notepad.
5) Then you must scroll some to the right and you see all kind of codes. You
see which squads are involved and how many planes they have, you see the
mission name and a lot of other things.
6) Now, you should see somewhere on the first line a section called
msnEnvironment. You'll seesomething like this:
msnEnvironment ( msnDate "8/15/1945" msnCloud "strClear" msnWindVelocity
0 msnWindDirection 0 )
This is the environment section and this is important for the sky/fog colour
and the visibility too.
Now, you should add 4 words and numbers to get it:
msnEnvironment ( msnDate "8/15/1945" msnCloud "strClear" msnWindVelocity
0 msnWindDirection 0 msnFogColor 1 1 2 msnClearColor 1 1 2 msnFogDist 1
msnViewDist 3 )
As you see there is added msnFogColour, msnClearColour, msnFogDist and
msnViewDist. The colors go in rgb values. The distances (Dist) go in miles.
7) Now pick a nice colour with your paint program, note down the rgb value
and fill it in behind the msnFogColour and msnClearColour.
The difference between the 2 is that the FogColour will change the colour of
the nearest visibility barrier (where the fog begins) and that's the closest
to you. The ClearColor will change the background colour, so what's behind
the fog.
You can ofcourse make the fog yellow and the sky black, but that totally
makes no sense. So try to give them both about the same colour. I both gave
them 1:1:2 as you can see cause that's almost pure black for night.
A few RGB values that work for me are:
Not totally black....msnClearColor 25 25 30
msnFogColor 20 20 25
msnFogDist 5
msnViewDist 10
Dawn/Dusk............msnClearColor 255 138 104
msnFogColor 253 136 102
msnFogDist 5
msnViewDist 10
8) Especially at dawn there's always a lot of fog and that's where the
FogDist and ViewDist comes in. For a nice touch you can set new distances
for these. The FogDist is the distance where the fog begins and the ViewDist
is the total visibility (so the last point you can see through the fog).
Always make the ViewDist number bigger than the FogDist. The distances go in
miles. I often use 1 and 3 for night missions.
9) Now after you changed this and you're done just press to exit (you can
use the little cross right above too). Then the Notepad will ask you to save
and now press yes. This way you will save the file in it's original ( .mis )
format.
10) Now fire up the SDOE beta and you'll enjoy your own wonderfull mission.